Wednesday, 2 June 2010

A jury has found a 35-year-old man guilty of raping a 13-year-old girl in west Auckland and forcing her to smoke cannabis.

Aukusitino Fa'atafa was found guilty in the High Court at Auckland today of sexual violation by rape, forcing the victim to smoke cannabis to render her incapable of resistance, sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and detaining the girl with intent to have sexual connection.

and i'm also glad that the herald called it rape, both in the headline and in the body of the story. i don't understand why the defence lawyer thinks that it could have gone either way. based on the facts i've seen, and the simple fact that the girl was only thirteen, it would have been awful if the jury had given any other verdict.

there are issues of race in this story as well, but i'm too tired to cover it just now. so i'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.